La Russa settles lawsuit with Twitter

[1969pontiac]

Cards manager sued company for impersonator's posts

ST. LOUIS -- Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has settled a lawsuit with Twitter. He had sued the social networking site after a user claiming to be La Russa posted several distasteful messages.

La Russa and his attorney, Gregory L. McCoy, also the President of ARF -- La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation -- had sued Twitter, Inc., for trademark infringement and misappropriation of name and likeness in early May. La Russa had tried to contact Twitter several times to have the page removed. He went ahead with the lawsuit after he was unsuccessful in getting a response.

The page, which was taken down shortly after Twitter was notified of the lawsuit, contained a picture of La Russa and off-color references to his relationships with former Cardinals pitchers Darryl Kile and Josh Hancock, both of whom have passed away.

"Probably the biggest misconception that [McCoy] was hearing and reading was that it was about somebody using Twitter to be critical of me," La Russa said before Friday's series opener against the Colorado Rockies. "There is a law against improperly using a person's name without authorization and it wasn't authorized. You can't sue everybody for criticizing you, but it seemed like that was the perception, that I or we were upset with the criticism. No, it was improper use of the name. But it's been settled."

The suit was settled out of court and La Russa said that the damages would likely consist of covering legal fees and possibly a donation to ARF.